Mark & Mandy

I remember how hard it was to go back to school after a fun filled summer of laziness and no homework. But today I got a surprise – Miss Jenna Baro, our neighbor started her first day of kindergarten today. She stopped by to show me the crown that she had made in Mrs. Morris’s class. She decided to let crenshaw in on the fun… since his head was too small (yes, he has a small head) for the crown, Jenna improvised and made a belt.

Crenshaw played along but gave us a few dramatic scenes reliving the days of the Safe-Cat Cat Jacket. [For those who don't know - I purchase a harness type jacket for crenshaw when he was little that had a handle on it. You could really pick him up like a lunch pail. When we would put it on him, he would wait until you were looking and dramatically collapse on the floor.]

Crenshaw enjoyed being part of the celebration. What a sport!!

This past weekend Guy (One of the KA Bro from Stanford) dropped in for a visit. He is on his way to Aspen for a week of fresh air and outdoor activities. He is also hopeful that he may land a Colorado Sugar Momma. The boys did an afternoon of golf, and then we had a late dinner at our house.

Guy showed up with a bottle of Cakebread wine as a welcome gift – he was proud to say that he had visited Cakebread while touring napa with the Etters. The Wine was delicious. After all of Guys talk about being a practiced drunk he was exhausted and in bed by 11:00.

We decided to play golf again on Saturday (with me this time) – and I was happy to convince Guy that we should share a cart – you know Mark, he is anti-cart. We strategically placed a cooler of beers in our back yard (hole 4) so that we could grab them as we passed. All was going well as we teed off on the 6th hole…

Thunderheads came rolling in and we started to see a lot of lightning around us. Guy and I were nervous but Mark and Josh made us push on. About 15 seconds after mark called us babies – the rain started pouring down and we had to make a run for the lightning shelter. It was like a party in here – and all was going well until… uh oh, we ran out of beer.

Fortunately, Brave Josh decided to venture out into the rain (take one for the team), run to his house (on the 6th hole) and bring us all back cold drinks. What a hero!!

We waited in the shelter with our fellow golfers for about 45 minutes until we decided to give up – Guy needed to be heading to Aspen, Lola needed to be collected from doggy-daycare and I was freezing (notice mark wearing a jacket).

Josh and Guy headed to josh’s and mark and I braved the rain to return the cart. By the time we made it home I was soaked and dirty. We had a lot of fun with Guy and look forward to his yearly trip out west!

We are back from a fabulous week in Mexico with Scott and Julie – Zihuatanejo was wonderful. The weather was hot and humid which meant lots of cold beer and margarita’s was really our only option to stay alive. Thank goodness we were up to the challenge!We spent the majority of our days on the beach reading and doing the crossword puzzle that was delivered in the NY Times Digest each day. Julie is excellent at the puzzle and I was easily addicted – until Friday rolled around and it was extremely difficult, even with 4 brains we were stumped.

Hotel Villa del Sol is lovely – there are many pools (including an infinity pool and a bar pool) and a fabulous beach. The water in all of the pools was an exact 98.6 degrees – it felt what we imagined a sensory deprivation pool might feel like.

One night at dinner (the food was awesome) Scott made a point to say that he wished people would write more on their blogs – you know me I am completely visual, but if Scott could remember that each picture I post is worth a thousand words, I might get the award for being the most prolific blogger around!

More Mexico stories to come…